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A University of Scranton junior is getting national attention for her mushroom research.

For more than two years, Samantha Scott, who is studying biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, has been researching the presence of an exotic strain of bacteria, Burkholderia gladioli pv. agaricicola, on American-grown white button mushrooms.

This strain of the bacteria causes soft rot in mushrooms and has been known to cause infections in those with weakened immune systems. Until now, only white button mushrooms from New Zealand tested positive for this pathovar, or strain, of B. gladioli.

Thanks to the work of Ms. Scott, a Falls Twp. native, and her professor, Michael Sulzinski, Ph.D., scientists now know it can be found on mushrooms purchased from local groceries.

Ms. Scott and Dr. Sulzinski presented their findings Monday during a poster exhibit at the American Society of Microbiology meeting in Boston.

The conference drew about 8,000 people. Exhibitors packed the conference hall with row after row of research posters, which scientists use to communicate their work. Ms. Scott’s was one of 2,892 the society approved for presentation.

Her poster drew the eye of Tom Coenye, Ph.D., an expert in Burkholderia who works at the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Microbiology at the Ghent University in Belgium.

“This is one of the largest microbiology meetings in the world, with close to 3,000 posters being presented, so it’s not easy to stand out, especially for an undergraduate,” Dr. Coenye said in an email. “Yet this is exactly what she did.”

Scientists don’t fully understand where B. gladioli and other “opportunistic pathogens” — which typically do not cause disease in humans unless a patient has an underlying condition, such as cystic fibrosis — live in the environment and how they move from plants or fungi to humans, Dr. Coenye said.

By identifying the pathogen on American store-bought mushrooms, Ms. Scott identified a home for this bacteria previously unknown to scientists.

“It is far too early to conclude that patients could become sick from handling or eating these mushrooms, but her work presents the necessary first step to investigate this further in order to make an evidence-based decision,” Dr. Coenye said.

For Ms. Scott, the way Dr. Coenye and other microbiologists responded to her work gave her a burst of confidence.

“At first, I was really nervous, but people generally really appreciated my research,” she said.

It also gave Dr. Sulzinski a burst of pride. “She did an excellent job,” he said.

The two met during a seminar class in Ms. Scott’s freshman year. The class sparked a lasting mentorship. “I just really enjoyed his teaching methods and everything he talked about for research,” she said.

Dr. Sulzinski has been working with Burkholderia for about five years. The bacterium makes for interesting research for undergraduates because it infects plants and humans, he said.

During the summer after her freshman year, they started doing research together.

“I just got hooked,” Ms. Scott said.

She started working in the lab regularly, sometimes up to five nights per week. She explained how the experiment worked:

First, they bought 200 samples of white button mushrooms from local groceries. They disinfected their surfaces with a bleach solution, then placed them in an incubator, she said.

After exposure to high heat and humidity, 75 percent of the mushrooms showed signs of soft rot, she said. They swabbed these samples and rubbed the swabs on a petri dish full of a special type of agar, or growth medium, used to identify Burkholderia, she said. The petri dishes then went through another round of incubation.

After the second round, 50 percent of the dishes showed some bacterial growth, she said. Ninety-five percent of these were Burkholderia gladioli, she said.

“It was incredibly exciting,” Ms. Scott said. “This is a bacteria that’s considered an exotic pathogen. It’s not supposed to be here.”

The two plan to submit a research paper to the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Dr. Sulzinski said.

It might take them awhile, because Ms. Scott will travel to the University of Rochester this summer for a scholars program in HIV/AIDS research.

Contact the writer:

bgibbons@timesshamrock.com,

@bgibbonsTT on Twitter

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